Got home in Africa

What am I here for.

West Africa is struggling with a rapidly increasing number of HIV/Aids patient and the international community has decided to put a lot of effort in this Afica wide problem.

Expecialy mobile populations like  truckdrivers are highly vulnerable to HIV.  Those people are only paid for the time they drive. When the are sick, as they are not paid for that time spent, they do not go to a hospital and take their sickness, often infections, through the different countries where they travel. Therfore they are the most powerfull vector for the spread of HIV/AIDS

Many of them also spend large amounts of time in their trucks far away from their families and can easily engage in different partnerships or can engage in the use of prostitution.

ALCO ( Abijan-Lagos Corridor Organisation ) is a NGO that takes care of the truckdrivers, sex workers and nearby living people on the road between Abidjan in Cote D'Ivoir and Lagos in Nigeria.

To bring the hospitals to the drivers, ALCO installed eight Wellness Centers along the corridor in order to provide basic medical and psychosocial treatment, HIV testing and general information on HIV/AIDS to the truckdrivers and sex workers.

Northstar-alliance on his side provides support on the operational organisation of these Wellness Centers and provides an own developed software, called COMETS to facilitate the registration of the patients and to link all the different Centers on one IT platform.

What am I doing here.  I started with the develepment of a Standard Operation Plan for the eight Centers.  Afterwards we will define the gaps and find a solution to solve the gaps.  After that is done, Comets can be installed.

Great job for me, I can travel the different countries, meet all the people and finally I hope to have participated in a high quality healthcare for the drivers.

Sorry no photo's yet, veeeeeery slow internet connection and I am unable to upload photo's.

I keep you in touch and next time something more on the daily life.

See you

Marc